Sat-ND, 28.9.1997 – Tuxedo junction
*** Prizes galore ;-)) ***
Don't miss the Most hated satellites competition!
Today's Deadlines
The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) out-of-control observation satellite Lewis was incinerated when it re-entered the Earth's atmosphere today, the U.S. Space Command said.
First of all I'd like to ask Paul Simon to accept my apologies because I recently misquoted his song "The boy in the bubble." The line should have read "These are the days of miracle and wonder." Anyway, it's true – we've seen crashing satellites a go-go, a major meteorite shower is close at hand, and if all that just wasn't enough, the sun now turns up the heat on satellites.
Between Friday and Saturday, one in a series of coronal mass ejections [sorry – no cheap, prepubescent jokes about this; I cracked too many of them recently ;-] was expected to impact with the Earth. As a result, there was a risk of surface charging anomalies on geosynchronous and high-altitude spacecraft. Such incidents have in the past killed transponders or even whole satellites. Some Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites in certain orbits were also expected to be in danger of surface charging anomalies.
But wait, there's even more. Scientists said that there was also a real risk for the magnetopause to be pushed towards the geosynchronous orbit. In a situation like that, Telstar 401 got killed last January. Fluctuations in the magnetic field could also result in the loss off attitude, i.e., satellites may lose orientation. Usually, it's pretty hard to get in contact with them afterwards, let alone recover them.
So far, there have been no reports about malfunctioning satellites. But hold your breath: there's the potential for more coronal mass ejections [ooh!] associated with minor and possibly future major solar flares, emerging from a sunspot region on the sun that's not just active but still growing – so there's still some hope ;-)
Okay, what better opportunity could there be to start yet another udderly [mooo!] silly and useless competition: what satellite(s) would you like to get killed, whether by the sun, by meteorites, or by any other act of god, and for whatever noble or primitive reason?
Send your pick to pck@LyNet.De along with one or two sentences explaining why that particular satellite should be zapped. Maybe I'll even be able to compile a list of most-hated satellites from your input – wouldn't that be interesting?
The winner will be chosen by an independent jury, which solely consists of yours truly, and be entitled to receive Sat-ND completely free as long as there will be any Sat-ND – and so will all other subscribers, even those who don't participate. It's an unjust world anyway.#
Upon request, your e-mail will (as always) be kept confidential; i.e. I won't mention your name or e-mail address when quoting it. Just include something like "Don't mention my name" in your message.
Henk C. Room has informed me that there's a page on the World Wide Web dedicated to the numbering of Ariane launches.
As indicated in the last issue of this so-called newsletter, the whole thing really is pretty odd. Welcome to the wonderful world of Arianespace where 100 + 1 gives either 102 or 502 ;-)
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/2058/news_03.html
Chris Heaton sent me some details on Jessica Rizzo's whereabouts on satellite. Her channel JRT has obviously merged [ooh, the urge to merge] with another Italian porn station. Here are the details for those who really need to know – shame on you, then!
"You said in your last posting that you did not know what happened to Jessica Rizzo's porn channel that she started. Surely you have heard of Satisfaction Club Television (SCT) It broadcasts from Eutelsat 10 East [and] is still going strong. A pirate decoder was recently made available for this channel but it didn't last long. An ECM [electronic counter measure] from SCT soon stopped it working."
Chris Heaton <http://www.cisgb89.demon.co.uk/>
Copyright
09.97 by Peter C. Klanowski, pck@LyNet.De.
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